


This is the sea

by pene



Category: Glee
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 23:05:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pene/pseuds/pene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Love might be huge, but it doesn't seem to have much to say in the face of death."</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is the sea

**Author's Note:**

> Set before and after The Quarterback episode 5.03. This is essentially an episode reaction and deals directly with Finn's death.

There’s no such thing as radar love. Blaine doesn’t have any warning that something is wrong. 

Kurt calls from New York. Blaine glances at his phone. He smiles, bright and wide, as he answers. “Kurt! I didn’t expect to hear from you ‘til later tonight. Not that I’m not happy, always-”

“Blaine,” says Kurt. His voice is shaken, shaking. 

**

Blaine means it when he says he’s loved Kurt forever. Even if he only counts actual technical days-and-minutes time, he has loved Kurt (wholly, dizzyingly) for three years. Love is huge. Love is universal truths and tiny details. It’s promises and duets and wholehearted speeches. It’s second chances; fucking everything up and being forgiven. It’s looking across a room and instantly meeting quick, clear eyes. It’s sweat and skin and being alive with a beautiful body you need so much it aches. And it’s knowing without looking when to reach for Kurt, when to place a palm at the small of Kurt’s back, when to grasp Kurt’s hand and never ever ever let go.

Blaine loves the huge life changing musical theater moments. But that wordless background language, that sense of always somehow knowing - that is Blaine’s quiet joy.

He might have loved Kurt for about a million years, but they were only back together for a week before Kurt had to fly home to New York. One week gave them time for speeches and forgiveness and singing and sex. One week gave them time to spectacularly make the bravest and happiest of promises. But it turns out one week wasn’t enough to rebuild Blaine’s confidence in that wordless language. 

So now, unbearably, Blaine has no idea what to say. Blaine’s friend, Kurt’s _brother_ is dead. And love might be huge but it doesn’t seem to have much to say in the face of death. 

**

Blaine breathes. “Kurt.”

“Please don’t be- kind,” says Kurt. “I can’t do this if you-” 

Blaine nods, though he’s very aware that Kurt can’t see him. “Okay.” He listens as Kurt speaks about arrangements, flights, visitors, food; he offers careful suggestions and assistance.

All Blaine wants to do is hold Kurt fiercely to him. It would be like holding onto life, holding onto this man he loves. But Kurt is in New York and Blaine is in Lima. And more than that, Kurt is barely keeping it together in his own ferocious, secluded way. 

All Blaine wants to say is, “I love you” over and over. But Kurt has told Blaine what he needs. So Blaine trusts that love sits somewhere far beyond just saying it. 

Eventually, Kurt says, “I have to go. I need to help Rachel pack and try and make her eat something. Santana’s taken her shift at the diner tonight. She’s being- as unlike old Santana as anyone could imagine. But I don’t know how long it will be before she breaks.” 

Blaine doesn’t ask whether Kurt has eaten or when Kurt will break. 

“Are your parents with you?” Kurt asks.

“Yeah. My mom’s downstairs.” 

“You- You lost him too, Blaine.” 

Blaine swallows hard, and there are tears right there waiting. It’s somehow dreadful to realize he will have to tell his mother. Telling makes it very real. He’s relieved his father won’t be there watching for all the weaknesses that will be right at the surface. 

“I’ll be at the airport in the morning,” Blaine says.

“Thank you.” 

Blaine stays on the phone. There’s a long silence - just their breath.

“I love you,” says Kurt. His voice cracks around the words.

“I love you.” 

Kurt hangs up hastily.

**

Kurt cries in private; in halting bursts. Blaine is mostly honored that Kurt’s concept of private seems to include him. It’s hard to know when to touch, when to hold back, when to let himself fall apart in Kurt’s arms. But the truth is it’s not like Blaine can make this better by doing the right thing. 

The week after the funeral Blaine offers to fly with them to New York. 

“Blaine,” says Kurt slowly and there’s sweetness but also something like fatigue in his tone. 

Blaine nods. He steps back a little, though he doesn’t mean to. 

“It’s not that I don’t want you there. But Rachel will be there and she’ll be alone.” 

Blaine nods again. The forever goes unsaid. They all lost someone but Rachel - her future - Blaine tries to avoid even imagining. He reaches out and clutches Kurt’s hand and tries not to be relieved that Kurt clutches back.

**

Kurt returns to Lima the week their friends sing to remember Finn. 

Blaine doesn’t sing. His brain is full and terrified and longing to sweep in and fix everything. Surely there’s a reset button to find or a time machine to build or a way to make them all wake up to a completely different reality. The fact that it doesn’t work that way - the fact that it will never work that way - silences him. 

In that silence Blaine discovers that there are things he still knows. He knows when Tina is incensed and full to the brim. He knows when Sam is shaking and can’t take a breath. He knows when the new kids need to be filled in on stories they didn’t live through. He knows, too, when he needs his mom, or his friends, or Kurt’s steady, tender breathing on the phone. 

He thought he already knew Kurt from all angles. But now he knows Kurt bruised and red-eyed and grieving. In the face of everything Blaine is aware, yet again, that he is all too fallible. He rarely knows what to do. And for now, knowing or not knowing doesn’t seem to matter. Kurt falls apart wearing Finn’s letterman jacket. He is on his knees and it doesn’t take Blaine more than a frozen instant to tumble to his knees with him and wrap around him.

** 

One night, late, they have sex in Kurt’s bed. It’s all hands and breath and tears and snot and desperate, shameless rutting toward pleasure. It’s also everything they have already promised each other. Kurt comes, sobbing and destroyed in Blaine’s arms. 

“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” says Blaine. “I’ve got you.” It doesn’t change anything. He holds on anyway.


End file.
